1. Technical Field
The invention relates generally to dynamic configuration data, and more particularly, to an improved solution for managing data for a dynamic configuration of a set of components.
2. Background Art
Various software and/or hardware components use configuration data of a system, such as a computer infrastructure, to interact with one or more components of the system. To this extent, the various components within the system, frequently called “producers”, make configuration data regarding their current hardware and/or software configuration available for use by other components. The other components, frequently called “consumers”, retrieve the configuration data and use it to make decisions on how to interact with the various components in the system. For example, when the system comprises a computer infrastructure, a router can obtain configuration data on various servers in the computer infrastructure to decide how to route one or more messages for processing by the computer infrastructure.
Historically, consumers would obtain the configuration data as part of a start up routine or the like, and assume that the configuration would remain stable for the life of the process. However, configurations, and their corresponding configuration data, are becoming increasingly dynamic. Further, new on-demand technologies require that consumers always be available and perform well regardless of the changing configurations. To this extent, consumers can no longer rely on a process restart, during which the start up routine is re-executed, in order to adjust to a changing configuration.
As a result, it is becoming more important that consumers be capable of dynamically responding to changes in the configuration. One impediment to implementing this capability is the tight coupling that typically exists between the consumer and the producer of the configuration data. For example, a consumer will often identify desired configuration data based on a particular producer.
To this extent, a need exists for an improved solution for managing configuration data for consumers and/or producers. In particular, a need exists for a solution that enables consumers to become more loosely coupled with producers of the configuration data.